Picayune Divide (7600) -- a bit of a roller coaster, with about a 2000 foot differential, when all is experienced and walked.

The way leads up past

striking exposures of

rhyolite and

granite,

mounting a fairly naked

promontory of Squaw Ridge,

up Five Lakes

Canyon to the

forest-border of the

Granite Chief

Wilderness, which is also the the continental divide (drainage east interior to Pyramid Lake, and west down the Rubicon tributaries to the American, Sacramento, and Pacific).

Beyond the woodsy

connection to the Crest Trail,

snow lingering in the highlands surmounting

flowery

meadows,

is

the

junction to

Whiskey Creek

Camp. After a chat with Jeff, who's done the Loop and camped here in the rain last night (semi-ominous news, as the clouds are clearly building today as well),

it's up the quixotic

Pikayune

(with a "c" in all the maps and guidebooks and dictionaries),

to

Shank's Cove

Shoulder,

views opening from

Granite Chief, Squaw Peak, Five Lakes Pass, and Ward Ridge, to

farther south.

Slopes of

ambiguous, path-obscuring

Mule Ears

lead

to

the

Picayune

Divide,

the south prospect draining to Hell Hole Reservoir, and the north beyond Mildred's snows to French Meadows.

By now, the nimbo-cumuli seem so close that it's time to put away the camera, etc., for the downslope, yet there's still an interval to chat with the intrepid Mike Sweeney, heading upslope upon descent, who's doing the optimal: hiking from point of origin over and down to Talbot Camp, thanks to a significant-other shuttle. We exchange info and then it's a beeline east in the crescendo of thunder to the car, arriving just before anything more than a spritz starts (God takes care of fools, once again). Signs of promise in the sky,

the cliffs of Bullshead,

Big and

Little Chief and

at last the

sun returns west of Donner Summit, homeward, with two more Animal Farm videos upon return:

XXV. Dogs and

XXVI. Wolves (a few of the former on the popular beginning of the trail today, but none of the latter).

In Re Mi

Mark Alburger (b. 1957, Upper Darby, PA) is an award-winning, eclectic ASCAP composer of postminimal, postpopular, and postcomedic sensibilities. He is Music Director of San Francisco Composers Chamber Orchestra and San Francisco Cabaret Opera / Goat Hall Productions, Editor-Publisher of 21st-Century Music (P.O. Box 2842 San Anselmo, CA 94960) and New Music, Music Critic for Commuter Times, and Instructor in Music Theory and Literature at Diablo Valley College. His principal teachers were Gerald Levinson, Joan Panetti, and James Freeman at Swarthmore College (B.A.); Jules Langert and Ted Blair at Dominican University (M.A.); Roland Jackson at Claremont University (Ph.D.); and Terry Riley. Dr. Alburger has composed 181 major works over the past 35 years, including chamber music, concertos, oratorios, operas, song cycles, and symphonies. His complete catalogue is being issued on discs from New Music ($15 / P.O. Box 2842, San Anselmo, CA 707-474-7273).
YouTube/DrMarkAlburger,
markalburger.blogspot.com,
markalburgerworks.blogspot.com, markalburgerevents.blogspot.com, markalburgermusichistory.blogspot. com, 21st-centurymusic.blogspot.com